{mosimage}Ontario Catholic schools will be monitoring the swine flu and reinforcing the message of good hygiene when school starts on Sept. 8.

Halton Catholic District School Board staff will be meeting with the local health department to discuss plans of effectively communicating information about the swine flu, also known as the HIN1 virus.

{mosimage}TORONTO - After a successful first year of school-based policing, 20 more officers will be patrolling hallways this  September to bring the total number of officers in schools to 50, says Toronto Police.

“These officers approached these assignments with insatiable energy and dedication. As a result, we have created new relationships with young people all over Toronto. They, in turn have come to respect police officers on an entirely different level,” said Toronto Police Chief Bill Blair in a statement.

{mosimage}TORONTO - It's going to be a tough new assignment, but the Toronto Catholic District School Board's new supervisor says he's up to the challenge.

Richard Alway assumes his new role Aug. 27, taking over from the provincially appointed supervision team of Norbert Hartmann and Norm Forma. The team resigned on Aug. 21. The Ontario government has been running the embattled board since last year when trustees became mired in a spending scandal and failed to balance the board's budget.

{mosimage}TORONTO - The newly appointed provincial supervisor of the Toronto Catholic District School Board is overturning a controversial decision to axe the Arrowsmith program, effectively ending a lawsuit against the board and Ontario’s education minister.

Richard Alway said in a letter to parents that after a “careful review,” and in consultation with the board’s director of education, he has decided to continue the program for students currently enrolled until 2012.

{mosimage}BRAMPTON, Ont. - More than 300 students celebrated the opening of the first Canadian high school named after former Toronto archbishop Cardinal Aloysius Ambrozic on Sept. 8.

Principal Tim Lariviere said the Brampton school is honouring Ambrozic in a number of ways. Its coat of arms includes many of Ambrozic’s own coat of arms, complete with the cardinal’s hat, cross and the picture of the lion representing the Gospel of Mark, the topic of Ambrozic’s doctoral thesis.

{mosimage}TORONTO  - The Ontario government’s proposed bill on student accountability would diminish the powers of democratically elected school trustees, says the president of the Ontario Catholic School Trustees’ Association.

Paula Peroni told The Catholic Register that if passed in the Ontario legislature, Bill 177 would increase the provincial government’s control over school boards.

{mosimage}Hiring only Catholic teachers at publicly funded Catholic schools is “unfair” and discriminatory, says a Guelph-area teacher who has recently taken the Wellington Catholic District School Board to the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal.

“It’s unfair for a large organization to accept large taxpayer dollars, including my own, and then not being interested in hiring everybody from whom those tax dollars come from,” Jesse Lloyd told The Catholic Register in an interview from Guelph.

{mosimage}BURLINGTON, Ont - Alice Anne LeMay recalls playing the role of “hot dog lady” at a basketball game for special needs students in the Halton Catholic District School Board .

LeMay, whose son has a hearing disability, said it’s activities like these which highlight the Catholic and “inclusive” spirit of the Halton board over the past four decades.

{mosimage}TORONTO - St. Joseph’s Morrow Park High School students can breathe a sigh of relief — at least for the next three years.

The Toronto Catholic District School Board is finalizing a deal with Tyndale College, which has been leasing the property to the board since 2006, that would allow students to remain at the school temporarily. Tyndale bought the 20-hectare property from the Sisters of St. Joseph three years ago. 

{mosimage}TORONTO - Full-day kindergarten is an investment in the future and a “courageous” decision during a time of economic downturn, says the head of the Catholic teachers' union.

But it's also not unfamiliar to Catholic schools, James Ryan told The Catholic Register, given that eight Catholic boards have some form of full-day kindergarten.